Uniregistry Market NS Resolving to Default Afternic Lander

I was doing some acquisition research the other day when I came across a domain name that has the Afternic landing page stating “This domain is registered, but may still be available.” A Whois search showed me the domain name uses UNIREGISTRYMARKET.LINK nameservers and not the Afternic nameservers I expected to see given the landing page.

In looking at DomainTools, I can see that nearly 50,000 domain names still utilize the old Uniregistry nameservers that don’t appear to function as originally intended. Uniregistry Market was shut down by GoDaddy in 2023 following its acquisition of Uniregistry and Name Administration.

What this means is domain names that have the old Uniregistry nameservers that once hosted “for sale” landing pages or inquiry forms are now forwarding to Afternic landing pages that indicate the domain name is registered but could be available. A person looking to buy the domain name would click the link on the page and pay a $119.99 fee for GoDaddy’s Domain Broker Service (DBS) to try and acquire the domain name.

Most domain registrars make it easy for registrants to search their domain names by nameserver. Searching for UniregistryMarket.Link in that search field will show any domain names that still resolve to those landing pages.

After coming across the domain name that had these nameservers set, I did a Whois History search at DomainTools to see who owns this domain name. Turns out, it had registered to a well-known industry company before the Whois turned private in the last couple of years. I exchanged emails with someone connected to the company to let him know about the issue.

With nearly 50,000 domain names still resolving to these nameservers, I suspect there are quite a few domain investors who still need to update their nameservers.